Comments on: Big Brother State

Big Brother State

homunculus — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 21:20:08 -0800

Nice animation about life in a surveillance society. [Via BB.]

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 21:53:20 -0800

Part of the definition of fascism includes corporations actively merging their interests and activities with those of the state. Considering that trusted computing is about following bits of data from their origin, through the network, into your computer, and through your computer's video card and into your eyes via an end-to-end protected stream into your monitor, it's easy to see how the US government would want to eavesdrop, once Microsoft puts the infrastructure in place. It's definitely a legitimate concern.

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 22:07:03 -0800

I am fully aware that this will a) date me as old & b) single me out as totally wacko (so what's new)... but when I saw all of those hearts in the animation I suddenly had an overwhelming urge to hum the theme to Love American Style.

By: Malor

Malor — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 22:13:11 -0800

Nice to see an echo of what I've been saying: with the advent of Vista and its DRM/Trusted Computing, you are no longer the owner of your machine. Microsoft and Hollywood have veto power. Once that infrastructure's in place, there's no reason it has to just be those two entities, either.

By: ColdChef

ColdChef — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 22:15:07 -0800

"Big Brother State"--coming this summer from CBS!

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 22:23:28 -0800

On the blue: "A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection".

By: exlotuseater

exlotuseater — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 22:27:16 -0800

How does it feel to live in the panopticon?

By: inconsequentialist

inconsequentialist — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 22:43:28 -0800

The Government would like to obtain all of your personal, private information. Cancel or Allow?

By: divabat

divabat — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 22:44:56 -0800

Forgive me if I'm missing something, but how does the authorities knowing the colour of my eyes equal a lack of freedom? It doesn't stop me from doing anything.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 22:51:59 -0800

Yeah, that was a very well done little clip there, thanks homunculus. For some reason or other, this is the very first I've even heard of "trusted computing". And I see it ain't exactly new, either. A cursory search turned up this and this. And this MeFi post from 2004. But I wonder, does anyone have any very recent news/info on the current state of trusted computing? Anything that could shed more light and add to the discussion here?

By: homunculus

homunculus — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 22:52:22 -0800

As long as your desires don't send up any red flags in the system, you'll be fine.

By: IronLizard

IronLizard — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 22:59:02 -0800

Divabat: Sure and neither does their knowing your bedroom habits, having a good tape of your girlish screams when tickled or the brand of lube you buy. I'll pass, thanks.

By: inconsequentialist

inconsequentialist — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 23:07:16 -0800

They can have my information as long as they say they're sorry.

By: Malor

Malor — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 23:11:38 -0800

flapjax: that 'cost analysis' link is pretty good. It's the same stuff, they just renamed it.

By: homunculus

homunculus — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 23:17:11 -0800

FBI Misuses, Underreports Patriot Act Power: Audit

By: homunculus

homunculus — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 23:18:00 -0800

In other surveillance society news: Wife of Chinese Cyber Dissident to Sue Yahoo

By: homunculus

homunculus — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 23:20:15 -0800

Tibetan exiles to protest Chinese rule via 'net video, March 10

By: puke & cry

puke & cry — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 23:25:37 -0800

You're coming to a sad realization. Cancel or Allow?

By: Malor

Malor — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 23:37:16 -0800

Cancel, dammit. Cancel!

By: scalefree

scalefree — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 23:50:12 -0800

Vista's DRM is broken. Can't find any MeFi thread on it though.

By: scalefree

scalefree — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 00:01:50 -0800

I just want to add that I really admire the way he plays out the next several moves in advance, like a chess master showing a recalcitrant pupil why he's wasting both their times.

By: scalefree

scalefree — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 00:06:05 -0800

Maybe I spoke too soon. Still, there's hope.

By: homunculus

homunculus — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 00:36:56 -0800

Homeland Security revives supersnoop

By: hal9k

hal9k — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 04:43:39 -0800

Sorry. I clicked on this FPP quite by accident. Barely scanned the posts and did NOT click any of the user links. Save your form pop-up, I do not know these people. Before you invoke that fun little script, tell me where you have my wife and kids you assh

end
- begin 4get 2.11 
- dump cache
- erase hist: -3mins
- back

By: languagehat

languagehat — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 07:00:03 -0800

NSFW. Clip contains images of stick figures performing deviant sexual acts. All of your names have been entered in the Sex Deviancy Database. But don't worry—it's for the public good.

By: cillit bang

cillit bang — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 07:10:36 -0800

"The person that decides what software [...] you can install on your computer certainly won't be you" That's just utter bollocks. Trusted Computing (in as much as it exists) is mainly about detecting changes to hardware and drivers so that software that needs to can decide whether to run or not. Software that does not query the trusted computing architecture is unaffected. And if you install a whole other OS you never have to see it.

By: odinsdream

odinsdream — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 09:24:15 -0800

cillit bang, let's say Microsoft decides to team up with media companies to ensure that you can only play DVD movies with authorized player software. Who authorizes it? The movie companies. Would the movie companies authorize VLC, a player with the capability to stream the video out over the network to any listening player, even in broadcast mode? How is this situation at all unrealistic? This is exactly where we're headed shortly with Vista's built-in DRM.

By: clevershark

clevershark — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 09:32:03 -0800

People like to imagine that fascism comes in one fell swoop -- one day you wake up and shock troops kick your door in, and that's the end of freedom. That's a very facile, cartoony way to see it. The way fascism really comes is gradually and voluntarily. You give up little bits, one at a time, and every time there's always a "very good reason" given for why you should do that. The individual gradually gives up more and more rights and information to people he doesn't know, largely because he doesn't even know what he's giving up. Eventually those early surrenderings are used to explain why the individual should surrender more rights and information. In the end there are no more rights to surrender, but the individual doesn't even realize that anymore. One wave of the flag and he's ready to give up more of what he's no longer got.

By: hortense

hortense — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 09:40:09 -0800

OMG it's the suede denim secret police.

By: homunculus

homunculus — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 10:07:00 -0800

Cafferty: “War on terror is used as an excuse to circumvent our civil liberties”

By: cillit bang

cillit bang — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 10:36:06 -0800

odinsdream, you're yelling like a loon. Trusted Computing would allow the media companies' own software to test how secure the outputs are, and refuse to run if they're not encrypted, but not the other way round. The scenario you envisage would require Vista to actively prevent unsigned code from accessing the DVD drive. If Microsoft wanted to implement this, I'm sure they could, but it has little to do with Trusted Computing.

By: Deep Dish

Deep Dish — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 11:09:10 -0800

once Microsoft puts the infrastructure in place I enjoy a good Microsoft bash as much as the next guy, but MS doesn't make much hardware beyond keyboards, mice, joysticks and the x-box MS applications and web sites usually rely on Third Parties for content. People don't have to use MS software - I think Linux is shit but go ahead and use it if you don't like the alternatives. Taking on software companies is not like taking on the phone company, most CS students could create a working operating system. Where I live the ISPs talk about "blazing fast music downloads" - and say in really small print at the bottom "please download legally". These corps know that sometimes there is money to be made by screwing over each other - all you have to do is say the right things. So fight the real enemy, the governments and the lobbyists who create the legal and regulatory framework that allows this kind of electronic snooping and censorship.

By: flaterik

flaterik — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 11:22:16 -0800

most CS students could create a working operating system. You have a much higher opinion of CS students than I do. I was one, at a school with very smart people, and I doubt many of them could actually create a working OS. I've been a professional programmer for quite a while, and an OS isn't something I'd want to tackle. Unless your definition of "working" is much looser than mine. "Hello world" in assembly loaded from the boot sector does not an operating system make.

By: Flunkie

Flunkie — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 12:01:30 -0800

Blah. "The government can compile a database of the private details of my life without any judicial warrant at all and... OMFG Trusted Computing means I can't install Linux!" WTF.

By: Flunkie

Flunkie — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 12:02:24 -0800

Most CS students can't create a working "for" loop, let alone an operating system.

By: elpapacito

elpapacito — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 13:03:18 -0800

It's not like one could gain exploitable informations from the trashinfo you leave beh...oh wait ! Government dumpster diving ? Done comfortably from a desktop with a donut and coffee ? Noooobody would ever do that, too easy ! It's street action, chasing real criminals , biting bull...oh wait !

By: divabat

divabat — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 13:45:18 -0800

Divabat: Sure and neither does their knowing your bedroom habits, having a good tape of your girlish screams when tickled or the brand of lube you buy. I'll pass, thanks. Hmm. I rather doubt that they'll be spending their time looking out for free citizen porn. Wouldn't it really be just an overload of information?

By: [expletive deleted]

[expletive deleted] — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 13:49:08 -0800

Did anyone notice that in the old thread on Vista, Jairus posted a comment from Schneier's blog, and everyone took it as Schneier's words, when in fact Schneier is of exactly the opposite opinion about Vista DRM? I looked up this comment, and it's just some random trying to debunk Schneier's take on the matter. It seems Jairus, not finding someone well known and respected who agrees with him, misrepresented Schneier. I will instead leave you with a comment from Bruce Schneier's site, which said what I was going to say, but probably better: Ooh, tricky, he never said it was Schneier, only implied it. What a douchebag.

By: zabuni

zabuni — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 14:05:58 -0800

I'd just like to mention that currently, the DVD companies don't allow the playing of DVDs on VLC. VLC uses DeCSS to crack the copyright protection, which is illegal under the DMCA. That's why you have to go through several hoops to get VLC to play DVDs when installing it on a Debian/Ubuntu system. We already can't play content on the players we want, under the current laws.

By: cillit bang

cillit bang — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 17:25:26 -0800

That's why you have to go through several hoops to get VLC to play DVDs when installing it on a Debian/Ubuntu system. As they said in the video, we're one step away from a total police state.

By: IronLizard

IronLizard — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 17:51:21 -0800

Wouldn't it really be just an overload of information? Sure, until someone with access to this information takes a personal interest in you, for whatever reason. Maybe then they leak it for fun and profit?

By: Pastabagel

Pastabagel — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 18:07:08 -0800

Whoever animated this needs to get to wokr on the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy.

By: davejay

davejay — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 19:44:32 -0800

Hmm. I rather doubt that they'll be spending their time looking out for free citizen porn. Wouldn't it really be just an overload of information? I grew up with a lot of guys who became cops. There are lots of cops who are fine, upstanding people; these guys are not among them. I've also dated a couple of girls who had guys that practically stalked them out of unrequited love. One of those was a cop. We called him "fish-eye", because he would show up at places she was hanging out ("coincidentally") and give us all the fish-eye from across the room. Finally, once not too long ago I got a call from a guy I went to high school with. Mind you, he was a friend of a friend, and I had to look in the yearbook to even remember his face. Also, I had been out of high school for OVER TEN YEARS. Why was he calling me? To tell me how his life was falling apart, and to sell me Amway. My point, if I have one, is that we spend (esp. when younger) a good portion of our lives doing things that, overall, we don't want certain people (or the general public) knowing we're doing. That's everything from horribly illegal and deviant acts right down to picking your nose once and a while. Take surveillance, add the Internet, then mix in one person that (for whatever reason) takes an interest in you and has access to that information...and your career and personal life can be ruined and your reputation destroyed, or you can even be blackmailed. And none of that even takes into account more sinister possibilities; this is just run-of-the-mill the-guy-who-[bullied-me|I-bullied]-in-high-school-is-now-a-cop stuff.

By: scarabic

scarabic — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 22:46:49 -0800

So more or less the surveillance society is bad because it reveals to the police: 1) the color of my eyes 2) that I'm into watersports

By: homunculus

homunculus — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 23:47:27 -0800

The Failed Attorney General

By: EarBucket

EarBucket — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 04:46:46 -0800

Hmm. I rather doubt that they'll be spending their time looking out for free citizen porn. Wouldn't it really be just an overload of information? Yeah, surely they have better things to do.

By: homunculus

homunculus — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 23:44:17 -0800

VIDEO: Tacoma Police Gas Peaceful Anti-War Protesters

By: homunculus

homunculus — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 09:58:56 -0800

India: Google's Orkut helps cops censor? New cyberterror law...

By: homunculus

homunculus — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 12:14:16 -0800

Spying Too Secret For Your Court: AT&T, Gov Tell Ninth

By: homunculus

homunculus — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 11:25:09 -0800

The significance of the FBI's law-breaking